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Putin sought to boost Trump

The CIA had top-level intelligence last August that Russian
President Putin personally ordered an operation to help Trump win the US presidential race, the Washington Post reported Friday.

The intelligence shocked the White House and put US security chiefs on a top-secret crisis footing to figure out how to react.

But amid confidence that Democrat Hillary Clinton still had the
election in the bag and worries over president Barack Obama himself
being seen as manipulating the election, the administration delivered
warnings to Moscow but left countermeasures until after the vote, the
Post reported.

After Trump’s shock victory, there were strong regrets among administration officials that they had shied from tough action.

“From national security people there was a sense of immediate
introspection, of, ‘Wow, did we mishandle this,’” a former
administration official told the newspaper.

The Post said that as soon as the intelligence on Putin came in, the
White House viewed it as a deep national security threat. A secret
intelligence task force was created to firm up the information and come
up with possible responses.

They couldn’t do anything about embarrassing WikiLeaks revelations
from hacked Clinton emails. The focus turned to whether Moscow could
disrupt the November 8 vote itself by hacking voter registration lists
or voting machines, undermining confidence in the vote tally itself.

Worried about making the situation worse, the administration put off
retaliating, and instead delivered stiff warnings directly to the
Russians not to go farther.

At least four direct warnings – Obama to Putin, spy chief to spy
chief, and via top diplomatic channels – appeared to have an impact,
officials told the Post. They believe that Moscow pulled back on any
possible plans to sabotage US voting operations.

“We made the judgment that we had ample time after the election,
regardless of outcome, for punitive measures,” a senior administration
official told the Post.

Options to retaliate were on the table early: more crippling
sanctions on the Russian economy, leaking information that would
embarrass Putin diplomatically, and launching cyberattacks on Russian
infrastructure were high on the list.

But Trump’s shock victory dampened the response.

Obama took modest measures at the end of December, expelling 35
Russians and adding to existing sanctions. He also, according to the
Post, authorized a plan to place cyberattack implants in the systems of
critical Russian infrastructure.

But it remains unclear, the Post said, whether Trump has followed through with that.

“Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November
8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?” he
posted on Twitter.

In an interview with Fox News program “Fox and Friends” that will air
Sunday, Trump groused that Obama’s response did not get more media
coverage.

“The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even –
before the election. And I hardly see it. It’s an amazing thing,” Trump
said in an excerpt released by the program Friday evening.

“If he had the information, why didn’t he do something about it? He
should have done something about it. But you don’t read that. It’s quite
sad.”